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Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Co-Chair of the Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy project, and a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. Before joining the School in 1979, Mr. Lee spent nine years in Massachusetts state government as Director of the State's Energy Office and Special Assistant to the Governor for environmental policy. He has served on numerous state, federal, and private boards, and advisory committees on both energy and environmental issues. For the past four years, he has been the chairman of the Massachusetts Stewardship Council, which oversees all of the state parks and recreation facilities. Additionally, he has worked with private and public organizations, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, the State of Sao Paulo, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, the National Research Council, the Intercontinental Energy Corporation, General Electric, and the U.S. EPA. His recent research interests focus on energy and transportation, the geopolitics of energy, China's energy policy, and public infrastructure projects in developing countries. Mr. Lee is the author of recent papers on China's oil initiatives in the Middle East and Africa, the economic viability of electric vehicles, as well as case studies on tariffs to promote solar energy, Iceland’s green energy agenda, and Liberia’s electricity sector.

The Harvard-Tsinghua Workshop on Low-Carbon Development and Public Policy is the third annual joint workshop between the Harvard Kennedy School’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Sustainability Science Program and the Center for Science, Technology, and Education Policy at Tsinghua University. The workshop convened prominent members of the academic and policy communities from China and the United States at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, on June 2-3, 2016.

The three closed sessions were on: 1) Market Mechanisms to Reduce Carbon Emissions, 2) Role of Local Government in Low-Carbon Development, and 3) Energy Technology Innovation in the Transportation Sector.

Building on the momentum of the agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UNFCCC and Italy's intent to put forward a national program flowing from such agreements, the Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, Aspen Institute Italia and the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea convened a workshop in Florence, Italy on July 1, 2016 to discuss the Post-COP21 climate strategies and efforts to realize sustainable economies in Europe. The objective of the workshop was to provide a safe environment where policy makers, academics and industry leaders could come together and discuss how Europe could achieve a lower carbon energy transition. The workshop consisted of three main sessions: (1) How to achieve the EU2030 and 2050 goals; (2) how energy technology innovation can be spurred to create more options; and finally (3) what financial advances are necessary to fund these efforts. This not-for-attribution post-workshop report summarizes the highlights of the discussions, without attributing any views or comments to specific individuals.

In the last two years, China’s President Xi Jinping signed two major climate agreements with the United States committing China to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and to increase the non-fossil-fuel share of all energy to a target of 20 percent. In addition, China submitted to the United Nations’ meaningful Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) outlining its carbon reduction targets. Chinese officials at all levels of government — central, provincial and local — are focused on developing low-carbon initiatives, with each one competing to have the most visible initiatives, ideally without having to expend much in the way of new resources.

This report was compiled as background readings for the participants of the Climate Strategies post-COP21 and Sustainable Economies in Europe workshop, that was held in Florence, Italy on July 1, 2016.

Various policies targeting at building energy efficiency have been promulgated by the Chinese government in the past decade. However, few studies evaluate if China is on the right path to meet its energy goals through these policies by providing an assessment of their effect in reducing energy consumption in residential buildings or the feasibility of such policies to catalyze these reductions. This paper attempts to fill this gap by systematically quantifying (1) the energy savings catalyzed by existing policy instruments; (2) the additional energy savings that could be realized by strengthening these policies; and (3) the relative advantages of each policy.

The promise, prospects, and public policy trade-offs related to second-generation biofuels in road transport were addressed in an executive session convened at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 7 and 8, 2015. The workshop brought together twenty-eight of the world's leading experts from the fields of policy, science, and business for an intensive two-day session. This report is a summary of the main points and issues raised over the two days. It has been reviewed by all the participants. The summary is intended to reflect the breadth of the discussion, rather than to suggest any form of overall consensus among the participants.

China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for one-quarter of the global total in 2013. Although the country has successfully lowered the rate of emissions from industry in some cities through improved technology and energy-efficiency measures, rapid economic growth means that more emissions are being added than removed. Without mitigation, China's CO2 emissions will rise by more than 50% in the next 15 years.

This April, the United States assumed the Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. The Belfer Center Environment and Natural Resources Program is releasing a series of policy briefs on the issues relating to the Arctic. This brief, focusing on security issues, is the first in this series.

The promise, prospects, and public policy trade-offs related to the greater use and production of second-generation biofuels were addressed in an executive session convened by the Harvard Kennedy School on November 13 and 14, 2014. The session attracted more than 25 of the world's leading experts from the fields of policy, science, and business for an intensive two day session. The agenda consisted of three sessions focused on (i) the sustainability of cellulosic supply chains, (ii) government policy options to attract investment and (iii) government policy options to ensure that environmental objectives are met.

Environment - ENRP

The Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) is the center of the Kennedy School of Government's research and outreach on public policy that affects global environmental quality and natural resource management.

Events Calendar

We host a busy schedule of events throughout the fall, winter and spring. Past guests include: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Broadmoor Project

The Broadmoor Project: New Orleans Recovery is an effort initiated in 2006 to assist residents of New Orleans' hard-hit Broadmoor neighborhood in designing and implementing a strategy for post-Katrina neighborhood recovery.